


One Reborn In Flames

by KelpietheThundergod



Series: testimōnium tuum est essentiālis (your testimony is essential) [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s11e10 The Devil in the Details, Episode: s11e11 Into the Mystic, Implied Relationships, M/M, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 01:56:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5849566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelpietheThundergod/pseuds/KelpietheThundergod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The grass and the sky and the swings fade away. He is back in his prison.</p><p>Back with his doubts.</p><p>He has to see – but Lucifer isn't letting him see. Lucifer must know what a torture it would be to let him watch. It's strange that he rarely does it. He stares upwards, straining, pushing. The dark light is endless up above.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Reborn In Flames

 

 

 

_one drowning in its ashes_

 

 

 

He had watched, once. Back when time was meaningless.

(Before Dean)

Watched a volcano erupt and spit fire and ash and toxic smoke into the vast sky of the early days. It was raw power and beauty of creation. Now, he would say it was violent. He wouldn't want to stand so close again. Now violence is tied with guilt. With fear, and with loss. And beauty is a smile now, a steadying hand on his shoulder. The presence of a good friend.

“Can I give you a lift?”

“No, you go ahead. I'll catch up.”

The words are far, far away. Hollow and echoing, like he's a breath of dust at the bottom of a high cathedral. Reaching for a star, for a constellation in – – he cannot focus. He grasps at his thoughts, scrambles for direction. Up and above, graceful wisps of smoke hold him down like strong forged iron.

What has he done?

What has he done.

>

He asked Dean, once – late, late at night – what it had felt like to be cured. Looking back on it, he can't say for sure why he asked. There was curiosity, and worry. They'd been tired, and awkward around each other with a conversational minefield between them. He had been restless, troubled with thoughts that led nowhere, and then to his own surprise found himself in the kitchen.

Dean was there, at the table, facing the door. Nursing a beer – or, at least, he had been. His fingers were tipping the bottle idly from side to side, like an uneven pendulum, but it made no sound. The bottle was empty. Dean didn't appear to have realized.

Dean looked up when he came to stand in the doorway, twisted his features into something that was probably supposed to be a smile. But looked painful. It hurt him in return.

He tried to smile back regardless, and moved to sit with Dean. Dean looked so sad. But Dean joked, and turned his body towards him and moved his empty bottle to the side. Then started to fidget with his hands like now that they were empty, he didn't know what to do with them. Dean's eyes flickered up to his and then quickly away again. Dean had been so quiet lately. Shy; and he had never associated that with Dean before.

Maybe that was why he asked. And Dean answered, if halting and reluctant. Dean had dark circles under his eyes. Dean fell asleep at the table. And he had left, out of fear.

>

_Castiel Castiel Castiel Castiel Castiel Castiel Castiel Castiel Castiel_

The voice yanks at him. Moves him up to see.

They are – he knows this room. Papers are strewn all over every surface. His sleeves are rolled up. It looks strange. Wooden boxes are shoved all over the floor, their contents picked apart and thrown aside, carelessly. He winces. Dean dislikes disarray. This is his home.

 _Don't get why you hang with them_ , Lucifer says. Disbelief blended with disgust _. I mean, sure, they got some kinky mojo saved up in here, but. Not the brains to know what to do with it._ Lucifer snorts. _They'd be better off collecting kitten stickers – –_

Lucifer pauses. Straightens.

“Hello, Dean.”

Turns.

He freezes in his prison. Stops moving. The words resound through their vessel, deep and real and mocking.

Dean stands in the doorway, shock and confusion all over his face. For one, wild moment, he thinks – – thinks that maybe, somehow. Impossibly. Dean knows.

But Dean lets the gun sink. Tugs it away. Steps closer. Dean doesn't know.

Dean opens his mouth but he – can't hear anything. Lucifer has cut him off. It shouldn't, but it does – hurt even worse than having to hear himself speak and Dean answer. Now he is reduced to watching Dean's eyes when Lucifer looks at him, and try and use that to guess at what is being said. It is difficult. No matter how quickly Dean folds back into himself after an emotional confession, after every moment of perceived vulnerability, Dean always feels so _much_. Dean looks exhausted and stressed, his body language by turns wary and trusting. His shoulders are slumped, then tense. His eyes flicker away and down. Distressed. Ashamed.

He isn't sure why Lucifer is letting him watch now. Perhaps to show him that he will not harm Dean, or Sam.

A flicker of a thought sounds from far above again, derisive in an almost bored sort of way.

 _...betting on someone so obviously weak is beyond me. A hallow? A spear?_ This _man?_

Dean, to Lucifer, is a thing. One he loathes, but that is ultimately a mere blip on his radar. Meaningless. Lucifer will forget about Dean, and Sam, because they won't need them for this fight. They will be far away from them. They will die far away from them. Perish, and take the Darkness with them.

Lucifer reaches out their hand. Lays it on Dean's right shoulder. Dean looks up, stares at him. At them. Dean looks afraid, but he doesn't move away. Because he allows Castiel close. Allows his touch.

He brought Dean out of Hell. And now he has brought Hell back to him.

>

“Well, it hurt like a bitch.” Dean had laughed, his smirk was too wide in his face. Old pain flickered through Dean's eyes. He'd smiled back, if weakly. He understood – or, at least, knew of – Dean's penchant for deflecting emotional situations with humor.

Dean sighed, shifted his weight. Looked down at the table. “My memory of the whole deal is a bit – ” Dean lifted one of his hands, made a vague swirling motion in front of his face, “hazy. But.” Dean paused, swallowed. Dean's eyes briefly met his and then his gaze fell down to the tabletop again. “I dunno, it was like. Lava. My arm hurt like someone was running a live wire through it.” One corner of Dean's mouth ticked up in an almost grin, but it quickly fell away. Too much effort, it seemed. “And then everything just came – rushing back in. All the guilt and the – ” Dean's voice had grown strangled towards the end, he cut himself off abruptly and cleared his throat. And then didn't continue.

He didn't ask Dean again.

>

He's being pushed down again as soon as Dean leaves. Lucifer is looking for something, and doesn't want him to know what it is.

>

Time passes. He thinks. There are snatches. He saw the lake and the birds. Mostly he sees Sam and Dean. Lucifer cannot think him a threat – maybe he doesn't care. Maybe it amuses him. Maybe he wants to distract him from something else.

Sometimes he can hear. Mostly not.

“I'm fine, Cas. How 'bout you? You kinda – had a rough go at it lately.”

Lucifer tells him he's okay. Dean looks doubtful, but he doesn't ask again. It's all there in Dean's eyes though – Dean wants to, _has to_ believe that Castiel is okay. Dean has always had too much faith in Castiel. Dean always cares too much, and then it crushes him and he can't take another burden, another hit. Dean shouldn't worry about him anyway. He is not important. Why are they still here? They should be far away from – from home.

Something must be missing. But Lucifer has all he needs – a vessel, and the strength of a thousand blazing fires burning in his grace.

Why are they still here?

>

He had wanted to reach for Dean, then. Offer a word of comfort. Even false comfort – a thing he hadn't understood in the past. He did now, but he couldn't come up with anything. Dean had just been a prisoner of his own soul. He had nothing to offer Dean. He didn't reach for Dean. He didn't say a thing.

>

He dreams – well, no, he doesn't dream. Angels don't dream. But his awareness shifts inwards, and then he is somewhere else.

He recognizes it immediately. The park bench is sturdy and solid under him. His feet are on the grass. The sky is high and blue above. The air clear. Sound of a child's laughter. Swings. Trees.

He looks down, at his hands. Lifts them from his knees, turns them palm-up. He knows it's not real, it's just a memory. It feels amazing. He turns to his right, expectant.

The bench is empty.

Dean isn't there.

>

He had been slowly burning out, back then. From his stolen grace. He had been trying to hide it from Hannah, from Sam and Dean. From himself.

It wasn't important. It couldn't be helped – that's what he'd told himself. But he had been afraid, plain and simple. Afraid not of dying – but of loss. And so he ran.

Maybe this is why he'd asked Dean. Maybe this is why Dean fumbled to explain, and then fell silent.

Dean didn't want to “be that thing again”. But.

“I see his point. Only humans can feel true joy, but. Also such tremendous pain. This is easier.”

They had wanted Dean back. And so had forced all of that feeling back into him that he, Castiel, had been running from for months.

He watched Dean nod off, his head resting on one arm. It looked uncomfortable.

He regretted having asked.

>

He rises partly off the bench and looks around, but he doesn't see Dean. Or Lucifer. Or anyone else he knows. One of the older kids looks a bit like Claire, and for a moment he feels warmed. But she isn't looking at him. No one is looking at him. He sinks back down, shifts uneasily.

Why is he here?  
  
_How_ is he here?

>

While they walked through Hell, the lightning of shrieking souls above them, Lucifer poked curiously and mercilessly at his essence trapped within himself. Sifted off-handedly through his memories, explored his new vessel like it was a nice weekend home by a lake under a tree, reserved just for him.

_Brother, have you been growing a soul in here? Because this is – messy. Chaotic._

He had stayed stubbornly silent. Lucifer had laughed, then.

_Shy? Oh, don't be. We will have so much fun. You should lean back and enjoy._

_>_

He looks around, but nothing has changed. It all looks real. Feels real. Even though it's not.

He must be here for a reason. Has he brought himself here? Is he trying to – what? Make himself remember something?

This is foolish. He is about to make himself stand. To turn and to walk away. But then, his own words rise unbidden in his mind.

“I'm not a – hammer, as you say. I have questions, I – I have doubts.”

Not a hammer. But that was then.

This is now.

What is he now?

>

_And hey, lean back and enjoy the show is about the only thing you can do. That's why you said Yes, right?_

>

The grass and the sky and the swings fade away. He is back in his prison.

Back with his doubts.

He has to see – but Lucifer isn't letting him see. Lucifer must know what a torture it would be to let him watch. It's strange that he rarely does it. He stares upwards, straining, pushing. The dark light is endless up above.

>

He can feel Lucifer sometimes – his burning cold. His rage. His cruel amusement. Lucifer is submerged and born and breathing in a burning lake of ice blue flames. Lucifer's fight against the Darkness was his ticket to freedom and is now a thing done out of self-interest.

Lucifer will die. He will make sure of it. He will die with him. Plain and simple. He's doing what must be done. He has nothing to fear.

He sits in the darkness with his doubts.

>

“Who cares what some ninja turtle says, Cas, what do you believe?”

The car is dark. It doesn't move. He is alone.

He is certain now, that Lucifer is not behind this. He recognizes this night. Feels an echo of what he felt then – the loss of faith in himself. Dean should be sitting behind the wheel, but he's not there. The seat is empty.

>

Something is missing. It makes no sense for Dean not to be in his memories of the past – except if it wasn't the past he was seeing after all.

Fear washes over him like an icy wave – but this time, he fights back. The fear, it makes him do nothing. It makes him run.

He stares at his prison walls. He said Yes because it was _necessary_. Or it had seemed that way.

He doesn't know what to do.

>

It's a stupid thing to do. It probably won't work. He barely has any strength in here. But no matter how much it hurts – and it will hurt. He has to see. To hear. To face this.

He looks up again. The ashen bars of his prison stretch up above him. But they're not what is keeping him trapped.

He presses himself again the ash, grasps at the curling smoke. The burning light. The dark matter. Pushes through the flames – through the fear, at least for now.

And climbs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank you to pirrofarfalla (singsilverlight) for the latin help :)


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